#BLUE PLANET SEAS OF LIFE EPISODE SUMMARY SERIES#

#BLUE PLANET SEAS OF LIFE EPISODE SUMMARY SERIES#

“I don’t think it’s too late on so many levels,” he states, adding that the series has kickstarted a global conversation about the fate of this natural habitat. Smith admits witnessing the threat to oceans “can be very saddening, and certainly the more aware you become of the massive array of challenges that are facing our oceans and its wildlife, it can be disheartening at times.”ĭespite that, the producer remains positive about the future, in part because of what Blue Planet II has done to make people aware of the magnificent beauty of the oceans and its life forms. “We put down time-lapse cameras to capture the bleaching as it occurred in front of us over a two-week period.” “We witnessed the biggest coral bleaching event that the Great Barrier Reef has ever seen, and certainly in the history of humanity,” Smith notes.

Some of the episodes touch on threats to marine life, like the huge amount of plastic dumped into the water, and coral bleaching caused by warming ocean temperatures.

“She’s imprinting herself on it as she is calming it and honestly that was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in nature.”īlue Planet II is competing for five Emmys overall, including two for cinematography and one in the category of Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series. And so when the mum would get her pup onto the ice the first thing she’d do, to us, it looks like kissing it,” Smith explains. “What they have are those iconic whiskers on their face, and that’s how they feel and they’re very tactile, those whiskers. There is touching footage of walrus mothers in the Arctic desperately trying to protect their young by huddling with them on stray chunks of ice. Whales, dolphins, orcas and other marine mammals also swim through Blue Planet II. “It’s a fish using tools,” Smith exclaims. Smith likewise marvels over the tuskfish that will snare a clam and repeatedly bash it against a coral anvil to break it open. And sure enough we managed to capture what, for me, is one the most beautiful underwater ballet and light shows that I’ve ever seen.”Īmong the other exceptional creatures who populate the series are leaping blennies-a type of fish that feel safer on land than in water giant trevally fish that “fly out of the water to snatch seabirds in mid-air,” and the kobudai fish that can transform from female to male. “And it was only in our last year of filming that a camera came out that we thought may just be able to do it. “These tiny plankton emit a very vivid light, a light that we can see with our eye, but we’ve never really been able to capture on camera before,” he explains. Smith cites the example of bioluminescent plankton. In that interim technology has advanced so fast it allowed cinematographers to record unprecedented footage. Smith adds, “We spent over 6,000 hours underwater, of which 1,000 hours were in the deep sea…One of my favorite is that we’ve apparently accumulated over a million feet of diving depth through the series.”īlue Planet II is a sequel to the original series which came out in 2001.

“Over four years in production, the Blue Planet II teams mounted 125 expeditions, visited 39 countries, and filmed on every continent and across every ocean,” BBC America boasts. What also shines through in Blue Planet II is the extraordinary lengths the filmmakers went to capture aquatic animals below and above the surface of the seas. UK Branded Content Execs Launching Production Biz House Of Oddities

Blue planet seas of life episode summary